|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
By Category |
 |
|
|
| |
|
| |
| |
India On Media |
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
| Others
News |
|
| An unlikely incubator of Olympic |
| An unlikely incubator of Olympic talent
|
| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
, 22-June-2012
5:34:20 AM |
| The table tennis club was built by Indian immigrants who made their fortunes in Silicon Valley. Its coaches were imported from around the world. And its star players were born to immigrant parents from China and Taiwan.
This year, it will send three players to represent the United States in table tennis in the 2012 Olympic Games in London: Lily Zhang, 15; Timothy Wang, 20; and Ariel Hsing, 16. All three teenagers trained here, in a nondescript warehouse, sandwiched between a strip mall and a trailer park, known as the India Community Center Table Tennis Center.
Almost overnight, the club has become an unlikely incubator for talent. Of the four American players who have qualified for the 2012 Olympics, only one is not from the I.C.C.: Erica Wu, who is from the Southern California town of Arcadia.
On a warm Wednesday evening, the club's parking lot steadily filled up with minivans. Inside, the ping-pong refrain of ball against paddle echoed off the walls. Youngsters sparred with coaches. Mothers and fathers watched from the sidelines. A teenage girl, mouth full of braces, reviewed algebra in a side room, as she waited for her mother to pick her up.
In one corner of the club, against a white wall plastered with a giant United States flag, the three Olympians posed for pictures. The center's director, Rajul Sheth, was busy fixing a paddle for them to sign; it would be presented to President Obama the next morning at a campaign fund-raiser for Asian-Americans.
Short, chatty, quick on his feet, Sheth came to the United States more than a decade ago to study mechanical engineering. His passion for the game got in the way. As a younger man, he had played for India's national table tennis team, and among the youngsters who came to play recreationally at the community center's main campus, a few blocks south, he saw glimpses of talent and drive.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ADVERTISEMENTS
Free offer!!! Become an administrator for your zip home page, "Post" local news (local to your postcode)& pictures, "Post" advertisement banners from local companies. Make Extra money.
|
 |
 |
|
|
| |
|
